Photo by Colleen Kelleher, courtesy WTOPMetro board members Peter Benjamin, Jim Graham and Chris Zimmerman appeared on WTOP today and told reporter Mark Segraves they expect a search for a new General Manager will take six to nine months. John Catoe announced his sudden resignation last week, and the board admitted that they were taken by surprise.
“We are at this point organizing our thoughts in terms of both interim and long-term hiring solutions. The board has not developed action plans on either of those,” Graham said.
There will be an interim GM in place by the time Catoe leaves in early April, but who that will be is still unknown as well. One option the members said they plan to explore is whether to ask one of the top managers who resigned last month to stick around for a little while longer. Deputy General Manager Gerald Francis, Chief Safety Officer Alexa Dupigny-Samuels, Metrobus chief Milo Victoria and Assistant General Manager Sara Wilson all announced their resignations in December, at the request of Catoe, who wanted to replace them in an effort to get new safety protocols in place faster. Wilson and Dupigny-Samuels were already planning on staying at Metro, albeit in different jobs, while Francis and Victoria were reportedly planning to accept positions outside the transit agency.
